


Another Horsedreamer's Blues

by Elasmosaurus



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Azure Moon Route, Byleth is because I say so, Canonical Character Death, Felix is not a horsegirl™️, Horses, M/M, Melancholy Post War Feels™️, Post-War, Reminiscing, Reunited and It Feels So Good, Soft Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 01:34:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28930323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elasmosaurus/pseuds/Elasmosaurus
Summary: During one of their periods of separation brought on by their conflicting duties as Archbishop and Duke, Felix is struck with a fierce longing to be with Byleth. He returns to the monastery via horseback to seek his partner out, and muses over the paths he and his friends have taken to get to this point whilst he looks for Byleth.Or: Felix is not a horsegirl, surrounded by horsegirls. The horses are a big thing in the story.Felileth for Felix Rarepair Week Day 6: Peace | GentleWIP Title: HorseBoyleth Hours™️
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/My Unit | Byleth, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11
Collections: Felix Rarepair Week 2021





	Another Horsedreamer's Blues

**Author's Note:**

> Massive thanks to [Tricky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrickySleeves) for beta-ing this for me, whose Felileth content is AMAZING - Please check it out!
> 
> Obligatory horsegirl is a gender neutral term.
> 
> This has been finished since December and I am SO EXCITED to finally share it.
> 
> CWs:  
> Melancholy Post War Feels™️  
> Canon Route Compliant Character Deaths  
> Horse Birth (nothing graphic, just look once no foal look again yay the foal appeared)  
> Survivor's Guilt  
> Mentioned ships in the end notes
> 
> If you like Ferdinand, I'm sorry.  
> I'll put myself in jail for horse crimes now. (No animals were harmed in this fic except me)

War had taught him the location of most of them, but muscles Felix still didn’t know he had ached. There was a dull burning in the thighs that couldn’t press together without shaking, his knees protested every step and his spine was oddly stiff from sitting so straight in the saddle for too many days on the journey between Fraldarius and Garreg Mach. 

This wasn’t his world. He was a trained assassin and swordmaster.

Horses are much too noisy for stealth. Hard to hide in the woods. Awful for hunting the way he did best, sneaking downwind along game trails. Sylvain had told him the official name for Liath’s colour was “blue roan,” but Felix failed to see how the slate grey coat lightened with white flecks was supposed to be ‘blue’.

His stomach growled in protest of the meal he hadn’t eaten in a day, another product of the lumbering oaf he’d just left in the care of the monastery’s best stablehands. Anticipating he’d hunt on the way, Felix had packed light for his journey. Clydesdales were built to carry weight, he knew that, but Felix had reasoned without it, they’d be faster. Even with rationing, his food provisions ran out halfway through Charon. 

He was a masterful hunter on foot, but it was his friends who were born to ride. Sylvain looked more natural in a saddle than on his feet. Even the most spirited wills gave to his instruction. Dimitri had been more than proficient until he bulked out. Felix was sure that if they could  _ somehow  _ find a specimen able to carry him, the King would look like he hadn’t spent a day off horseback. And where the rest of them had been able to swing a sword or stab a lance before they were three, Ingrid could ride before she could walk. Glenn had been great with horses, too. Felix admired his brother to no end, but his desire to be his own person had put him off the horse thing and now he just didn’t get it. Didn’t care to get it.

Byleth loved horses though, so these days, Felix made the effort to try.

For saying he never had anything to report, Gatekeeper was always quick to pass on relevant information to all the people you didn’t want to know it. Felix had arrived at the portcullis cold, wet, hungry, and  _ filthy _ . White feathers (Felix only knew they were called that because of a lecture from Ingrid. They looked nothing like feathers) long since turned grey from the muddy path, Liath was so heavy set that each clopping step muffled by the splash of puddles sent dirty water flying to cover them both. 'Stocky' was how Hapi had described Liath when she chose the horse he’d take to make his way to his true home. Not the ancestral one, Fraldarius stronghold, but the one he’d chosen for himself. The one duty and honour had been keeping him separated from for too long. 

Flecks of dried grime on his face cracked as Felix scowled at the tiny green-haired girl who beamed up at him. Ambushed just inside the main doors of the monastery; so close and yet so far from where he needed to be. Yet, Felix’s dour mood did nothing to drag hers down. Flayn was the embodiment of the first blades of grass that pushed through icy drifts, the most delicate snowdrop blooms as they forced their way to the surface announcing the end of harsh winters and the coming of spring. Hope. For their King, for their country, for their people.

The war was over. Felix had no need for hope now. Dimitri was as sane as he could be, and with Flayn to watch him - possibly even poison him to an early grave with her cooking, if they were lucky - he could be left, loved, to his own devices. The Shield of Faerghus was never far from the bloodline it protected, and they knew how to call him if needed.

Ingrid had found her place in the world alongside Ashe as knights in the King’s personal guard. Dread at the thought of losing them the same way he’d lost his brother had clawed its way into his head, but there were few people Felix would trust to watch his back in a fight. With that honour came a great respect for their combat abilities. Wartime’s threats had been eliminated; after what they'd been through, Ashe and Ingrid were laughably overskilled to endure any dangers they could face in the new world.

Sylvain had found everything he needed: a strong woman, as bitter about crests and the nobility as he was, whose lazy but passionate fire took the twisted darkness inside him and ignited it into a brilliance more blinding than the resplendent sunsets so reminiscent of his hair whose beauty Felix had shrugged off in their youth. He hadn’t seen enough of the bad in the world to appreciate such simple pleasures at the time. Standing on the balcony in his father’s quarters - his quarters now - where Glenn had once wrapped a young Felix and Sylvain up warm in his arms as they hung onto every word of the nonsense story he was telling and the dying embers of the sunlight disappeared across the horizon, painting the world in a brilliant crimson without a single drawn blade, seeing the same vibrant hues without painting them on the ground with a dazzling display of sword art, had filled Felix with such a deep longing nothing else truly registered until he narrowly dodged the apple thrown at his face.

“It is not like you to be so distracted, Felix. I promised you a purpose when peace reigned, yet you cannot fulfil it?”

Any further chastisement was cut off by the loud growl of Felix’s stomach. A day had already passed, he could wait some hours more. Flayn had other ideas. She prevented him from passing when he tried to maneuver around her towards the Archbishop’s office.

“The kitchen is  _ that _ way. I trust you are not so much of a lost soul that you cannot find it unaccompanied?”

Felix snorted, the closest to a smile she would get, and Flayn knew he wasn’t lost. As always, he would need direction to look after himself. So much and yet so little had changed.

“I’ll eat later. I’m going to find Byleth.” Flayn softened at his gruff tone, but stood her ground. She understood well how difficult it was to be separated from your love, but he would have time to look for the Archbishop  _ after _ food. If he didn’t eat first, the pair would go to the sparring grounds and spend hours there, as they always did when they were reunited. Dinner was being served to students and faculty  _ now. _ Felix would forget to eat if she let him go.

“Actually, I do not trust you to feed yourself properly. Accompany me to dinner. And as my sworn protector, you cannot say no, for otherwise I will be left with Seteth by myself!” Neither commented on how he wasn’t her sworn protector yet. The betrothal was all but confirmed. Felix sighed, resigned.

“As if I would.” In the past, this would have been a lie of sorts. But now, Felix slowed his pace to fall in step with the young woman he and Byleth had come to think of as a sister.

Or more like overbearing family. It would be painful if it wasn’t so wholesome and cathartic. Flayn manipulated him into eating vegetables, and Seteth forced him to agree to a tea appointment in the morrow where Felix knew  _ feelings _ would be the topic of conversation.

He missed those easy tea times, breathing in the scent of Almyran pine needles out in the courtyard as he badgered Byleth about exploring the monastery, classes, new sword techniques, and cats. He cherished the later, perfect tea times, debating tactics, evaluating allies, discussing their ability to rely on each other, and plans for the future. Sharing the worries they couldn’t tell anyone else. How they were both sculpted for battle from the earliest age, how war and fighting felt more natural to them than breathing, how they didn’t know what place Felix Fraldarius and Byleth Eisner would have in the new world.

Warriors had no use for peace.

Together, was the place they had decided, but the conflicting demands of running the church and overseeing a territory had other ideas. Patience at the tedium was hard to keep without a proper outlet to vent his frustrations. Training dummies helped none. Sylvain couldn’t visit often enough, and didn’t train like he should. No-one in Felix’s own employ came close to matching him, despite his many lessons. Only one person was good enough to push his abilities. Byleth was the whetstone that kept his skills sharp. He didn’t get to sharpen them as often as he wanted.

When at last dinner was over and he was free to seek the Archbishop out with Flayn’s permission and no guidance on where to start, Felix’s legs carried him by rote to Byleth’s old room. He leaned against the doorway as his eyes lingered on the places far too important to him to be covered in as much dust as they were, but that the staff had no time to clean. So many memories contained within four walls.

Felix sighed and uncrossed his arms. He pushed himself up from the doorframe and moved on, striding with purpose to another destination he hadn’t intended to check. Long gone were the days he’d find Byleth here. Lost as he was in the past, Felix found himself outside his old room, door locked shut, no closer to any of the places he might actually find Byleth these days. The corridor was abuzz with noise, current students chattering away about lessons and crushes and heroes. Unburdened. Innocent. A flash of silvery hair reminded him that Ashe’s siblings were attending this year, enjoying the education he and his peers didn’t complete before war broke out. 

Peace was a bearable price to pay, if it allowed children to remain so for longer.

Felix knew all the places in the monastery to look for Byleth when he couldn’t or didn’t want to be found. Little had changed, except that the Archbishop’s office and quarters should have been his first port of call. Would have been, if the tide of odd nostalgia hadn’t seized control of him.

Close as he was to the underground dwelling, Felix dipped into Abyss next. Yuri flashed him a devastating smirk as he shooed Felix out the way he came before he could see whatever shady dealings the trickster was up to. Byleth wasn’t below.

As expected, the office was empty. A fire burned in the Archbishop’s quarters, signifying only the preparedness of monastery staff rather than the presence of the one he sought. A third floor balcony of no particular importance that had been decreed out of bounds to all students was empty, as it should be. Felix paused in the cool evening air. A slight breeze blew loose strands of hair into his face as he looked out over the monastery.

_ Please. _

The sound of his voice, speaking that word, still echoed. Caught for all eternity in the masonry, to be reverberated back to him when Felix stood in the place where he’d finally, finally allowed himself to show a chink in his armour. To extend a hand out in vulnerability, asking for what everyone later told him was already his. Felix could be blinkered by his singular focus on swords at times. That had been one of those times. He’d somehow kept his hand from shaking, but it was damp when Byleth gripped it with a firm handshake and they whispered promises to each other. The small space felt empty without him. Onwards, then. Still places to try.

The training grounds were empty, much to Felix’s surprise. It’s where he would have been. It’s where he thought Byleth would be, honestly. His fingers twitched with the urge to pick up a training sword and practise on one of the dummies. Old habits die hard. Felix strode across the centre of the room, to the back corner with the door few knew about. A weapons closet was his sanctuary to hide from the world during academy days. He still didn’t know how he’d been found. Even then, Byleth had known the best ways to help him. One painful evening after his father’s death he’d heard footsteps entering the training grounds, advancing across the arena until they stopped just shy of the concealed door. The shuffling of clothes sliding against stone was followed by a blissful silence that was only interrupted when he opened the door, hours later, to see that lithe figure balled up against the wall, simultaneously refusing to leave him alone and giving Felix his space. That was when he’d known.

Felix’s pulse increased in anticipation as he got closer to where, in hindsight, it was obvious Byleth would be. It took all his self control, and Ingrid’s angry words in his head (“Don’t! You’ll spook the horses!”) not to run the last section. Now he was so nearly there, every second they weren’t together was one too many.

They spent enough time apart.

Finally, the longing ache was gone. Felix’s breath caught involuntarily and the corner of his mouth twisted up when he saw Byleth. He was sitting in Rocinante’s stable, curled up like he had been that night in the training grounds. Amaymon nickered when Felix walked past his stall. Dastard still liked to try and eat Felix’s hair, but he was swifter on his feet than the horse and ducked underneath grasping teeth. No stolen sugar cubes for the brute, then. Once safe from Byleth's horse, Felix paused. Byleth looked so small. No tear tracks on his face, but deep, dark shadows under his drooping eyelids. His head tilted forwards sharply and jerked back up, worried eyes darting over to the large mare struggling restlessly on her side.

Felix skirted around to Byleth, staying as far away from Ferdinand’s - Byleth’s, now - beloved mount to avoid causing her distress. He quietly sat, wrapped an arm around his shoulder, resting his chin on Byleth’s head. Not easy when they were similar heights, until Byleth relaxed into him. He knew what was going on behind those green eyes without having to ask. “We did what we could. Leave the dead buried.”

Easy to say. Harder to do when the burden of improper burials hastily given as they marched on to eventual victory weighed on them all.

“It’ll need a name,” Byleth croaked, voice just as weary with exhaustion as he looked.

“Hmm?”

“The foal.”

Felix vaguely remembered a letter mentioning Byleth’s intentions to breed RoRo and Amy. In person, he would have argued against it. Sure to cause more anguish than it was worth. Over paper, the space they had to communicate was scarce. There were better things to talk about.

They sat there in silence as Rocinante laboured on. He wanted Byleth to sleep, all thoughts of sparring driven from Felix’s head, but he knew his former professor wouldn’t while someone still needed his help. All he could do was hope RoRo delivered soon.

Despite all other signs to the contrary, Sothis must not have completely abandoned them. Felix’s ass barely had enough time to go numb when the mare lurched back to her feet, encouraging the newborn foal to eat.

“Not Ferdinand.”

Byleth nodded in agreement, glancing at the tiny figure struggling on spindly legs. “Looks like a mare anyway.”

Felix stared at the newborn and mother, feeling an overwhelming need to protect them. Care for them. Keep harm from befalling them, as it had befallen the one who should have welcomed Rocinante’s first foal into the world. 

“How about Vanessa?” Felix stood, gripping underneath Byleth’s armpit to heave him up. They were going to bed now. Stablehands could mind Rocinante for the rest of the night. He didn’t give Byleth the opportunity to protest.

The first two letters of the name hung cloyingly thick in the air. Byleth chuckled, and repeated his own words back to him.

“VA-nessa? Leave the dead buried.” Felix huffed, but pulled Byleth into a crushing hug nonetheless. Felix propped him up as they staggered back towards the Archbishop’s quarters. Byleth couldn’t resist a last stroke of Amy’s face, as he incoherently mumbled something about him being a father before Felix dragged him off with a groan at the thought of all the stairs.

He managed to flop Byleth down on the bed, removing his boots and cloak only before tucking the blankets around him. Felix brushed a lock of green hair out of Byleth’s face as he let out a chuff of laughter. Dimitri would be annoyed, but Byleth would find it amusing they’d gotten one over on the King once he was conscious enough.

The first parents from the Faerghus Four were entitled to the use of a certain name for their child. Everyone thought it would be Dimitri when they were younger, hence the choice, then Sylvain once they were old enough to appreciate the consequences of his actions.

It made Felix snort again when he realised Sylvain and Hapi were probably waiting so the King got first refusal.

“Isolde? Ice ruler,” Felix murmured into Byleth’s forehead as his lips pressed against them.

“Isolde...” Byleth’s eyes were shut. He was clearly seconds away from passing out. “Yeah. Make it official in the morning.”

A small, wistful smile curled at Felix’s mouth as he watched Byleth sleep peacefully. He forced his groaning muscles to move once more and climbed on top of the bed, fully dressed in his muddy clothes, too exhausted himself to do much more, and let sleep claim him too.

He always slept better at home: side by side with Byleth.

**Author's Note:**

> Ships:  
> Sylvain / Hapi  
> Ingrid / Ashe  
> Dimitri / Flayn
> 
> Fic titled after the song by the same name because it captured the horse and melancholy but hoping for the future vibes I was going for. Disclaimer, I did not listen to the song. This is set wayyyyy after the events of Another Year Older and the sequel I have started writing for it!
> 
> I promise I can write more than just melancholy post war feels and home / found family vibes! I completed this before my Hapi week stuff, where the prompts that called to me had the same vibes. Oops.
> 
> I love Felix is not a Horsegirl™️, surrounded by horsegirls so much. As much as I love Disney Princess Sylvain. Expect to see more of both from me in the future. I won't just torture Felix with horses though, I have Plans™️ for a few of the horse averse characters.
> 
> Please leave a comment or kudos if you enjoyed! I thrive on feedback (including constructive).  
> Shout at me about Fire Emblem on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Elasmosaurus11) and you can like / retweet the fic [here.](https://twitter.com/Elasmosaurus11/status/1355103637916311559?s=20)


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